


Lost and found

by needmesomepie



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, and a little sad, but then again, could have actually happened at the same time because uh, harringrove and teddy bears, i mean i've fucked actual world timings up in this so just p r e t e n d okay?, ish?, isn't everything i write a little bit sad?, set it whenever you want and just imagine all the things that happen, there's teddy bears though!!!, they couldn't, this is cute though, what more could any of us want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-29 01:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needmesomepie/pseuds/needmesomepie
Summary: When you've suffered a lifetime of losses, you begin to question if you actually deserve anything good. Or if you're just destined to walk on a path already trodden, endlessly pointing towards everything you want, but never actually coming to an end.So when you finally find it, that thing you thought you could never reach, you grab onto it and you make sure it will never get away.They say you know when you find true happiness.Even the most lost can always be found.-----Or in other words, Steve misses his childhood teddy bear and Billy is the best boyfriend ever





	Lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> i felt you deserved something fluffy and happy so have a thing <strike>which is still a tad angsty because who would i be if everything i write wasn't just a tad bit sad</strike>

His name was Ted.

Ted the teddy bear.

He was as worn as he was loved. Thinning, patchy fur, threads sticking out from half opened seems and holes where button eyes used to be. Dents where little arms had clutched him tight and stains where clumsy hands had spilled juice and touched him before washing them of the days dirt. An ear that was hanging on with a poorly done repair and a nose that had come off more times than Steve had dared to count. He was worn, he was falling apart, he was fading in patches. But he was Ted. Steve’s Ted. His beloved little bear. And he would always remember him exactly how he was, no matter how many years had gone by.

He’d had him for forever. There wasn’t a single day Steve hadn’t had Ted by his side, clutched in his hand, zipped with his head above the seam in his backpack at school. He was there in the picture taken the day Steve was born, and he was there every single day since.

Until he wasn’t.

He remembered how he looked back then, in those first few days, shiny and fluffy and the promise of something new. Just like him. Steve had almost been the same size as him then, lying there tucked under that blanket in the cot. Little fingers gripping onto his hand even then. It had been a gift from his mum, he remembered her telling him when he was 4. It was the only toy she’d ever bought him. It was the only toy he'd ever really had. He hadn’t understood until years later.

His eyes were two round buttons, black with a blue circle in the middle. His fur was long, fluffy, a consistent brown over his body, lighter and slightly shorter fur covering his feet and his nose and the insides of his ears. Ears that were both secure and in place, a nose that had never once fallen off. There had been a bow wrapped around his neck then, a small thing striped in red and white. Steve didn’t remember that as much, only ever remembered seeing it in photos. Figured it must have gotten lost. Maybe ended up in the same place Ted did.

Steve carried him around everywhere, took him to the park, poked his head above the zip in his school backpack, slept with him every single night. They were inseparable, a double act written in the stars. Steve would never dare go anywhere without his Ted and would throw a tantrum any time his dad said he had to leave him at home because _‘these are well respected business partners Steven, I won’t have you carrying around that bloody bear.’_ Steve never did get in the car when his dad shouted like that. Not without his Ted. Maybe if he had, he’d still have him now.

But one day, Ted disappeared. Steve must have been about 5. He remembered going to sleep that night as if nothing was out of the ordinary, he’d taken himself upstairs after his father had shouted _‘isn’t it past your bedtime?’ _when Steve had dared to knock on his study door, tucked himself and Ted in under the covers and fallen fast asleep. He’d never forget the way his heart sunk and his eyes stung when Ted wasn’t gripped in his arms when he’d woken up. He’d searched everywhere, pulled the covers off of his bed, crawled right under it, checked every sofa and drawer and wardrobe and cupboard and backpack and pocket. Nothing. He went to his parents, cried and cried in front of them. His mum had just patted him on the shoulder, told him _‘it’s probably for the best’_, his dad barely looked at him, told him he was too old for toys anyway. Steve cried for 3 days straight. He never did find Ted.

-

It wasn’t until a few years later that he realised his mum had probably removed the bow from around Ted’s neck, a health risk if Steve had pulled it in the wrong way. Steve had just added it to the list of little things he knew he’d owned at some point but had somehow lost somewhere along the way. Medals from school races when he was young, posters he’d put in a corner ready to stick up on his wall the next day, pictures he’d drawn on days where everything had gotten a little bit too much. He’d always just blamed his clumsy and forgetful nature but then his dad left for good and suddenly nothing disappeared anymore. It was around then that Steve begun to wonder if his dad had taken Ted too.

\- 

A few years later, when he was finally clearing out the stuff his parents had left behind when they’d moved away permanently for his dads business, he found a box at the bottom of a cupboard belonging to his mum containing everything he’d thought he’d lost. For a while he was angry, thought it had actually been her all along. But, deep down he knew she just followed his dad’s every step, pandered to his every need. She’d always been the one that loved him maybe just a little bit. Saved the things his dad tried to throw away.

Maybe she didn’t get to Ted in time. Because for all that was in the box, the one thing Steve had always wanted to find wasn’t.

-

He’d told Billy about Ted, one night before they were officially together, one night where Steve had drunk too much whiskey and smoked too much weed. They both had, Steve was surprised he even remembered the conversation. He’d cried, Billy had hugged him, kissed the top of his head. Steve knew he was falling in love with him that night, felt his heart beat in a rhythm out of sync with loneliness, knew he couldn’t ever let this go.

-

They kissed a week later. Billy asked Steve out the next day.

-

They’d been together 4 years when Billy sent Steve an extremely ominous text, told him to meet him at the mall at 12. Steve had fished for answers or an explanation but got nothing in return, figured he’d turn up and bite Billy’s ear off until he gave him a clue of some sort.

Billy didn’t, just grinned and took his hand and walked him into a store covered in ‘now open’ signs. Billy dragged him in before he got a chance to read the name written above the shop's doors.

“Billy? What is this?”

"Build a bear.”

“Why are we here?” Steve asked, incredulous, hand still gripped tight in Billy’s.

“To build a bear.” He grinned, teeth gleaming in the light. There was something of the boisterous 18 year old in the way his eyes crinkled and his lips smirked up. But it was gone in a second, replaced by the gentle, loving calmness that Steve had fallen for in the first place, no longer finding permanent residence behind his carefully crafted mask.

Billy led Steve over to a wall full of bears and animals and looked at him, kept his hand held tight in his own.

“I know none of them will ever be Ted, and I know nothing can ever replace what that bear meant to you. But I figured, ya know, as this was here, maybe we could try and build you something new? Or something similar? I know you miss him, Steve.”

Steve’s face was blank, eyes stuck staring straight at Billy, mind trying to process the words that had just come out of his mouth.

“Sorry, it was probably stupid, we can g-, are you crying?” Billy was panicking, turned to where Steve was standing, used his thumb to wipe away the tears.

“Steve? What’s wro-“

“Marry me.” It was a statement.

“What?”

“Marry me.” Steve said again, flicked his gaze to Billy’s, tears still falling down his cheeks, a smile starting to creep up onto his face, a hint of shock somewhere deep in his eyes as if he too couldn't quite believe what he was saying.

Billy’s face almost mirrored his, shock evident through the tears and the smile that was slowly working it’s way out too. He leapt forward and kissed Steve, wrapped his arms tight around his neck and kissed him with every single bit of love he could possibly muster.

Steve pulled back, grinning at Billy.

“Is that a yes then?”

“Of course it’s a yes, idiot.” Steve laughed and closed the distance between them both again, heart beating a rhythm it had only ever done around Billy.

Cheers erupted around them, shouts and congratulations and clapping reaching their ears. They gave them a courteous nod, a smile, but they only had eyes for each other. This was their moment.

“I’m picking this one,” Steve said a few minutes later, hand that wasn’t holding Billy’s holding up a bear in front of them both, “it looks like you.” Billy laughed, shoved Steve with his shoulder.

“That bear looks nothing like me and you know it.”

“Hm, no I see it. It’s the eyes.” And fine, Billy would concede to give him that. The bears eyes were round, a black button with a blue circle in the middle. They were the same colour as his.

“Fine, but that is where the similarities begin and _end_.” He said, watched as Steve’s eyes twinkled with a mischievousness he knew to be wary of.

Twenty minutes later, when Steve was tying a red and white striped ribbon around his freshly stuffed bears neck, he broke the silence that had crept up around them.

“I can’t believe you remember me telling you that story.”

“I never forgot.” Billy said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Steve turned to him, placed a gentle kiss on his lips.

“I love you, Billy Hargrove.”

“I love you too, Steve Harrington.”

“Oh, sorry," Steve said after a beat, an expression of feign innocence plastered over his features, "I was talking to the bear.”

Billy dropped his jaw in mock offence, laughed through it.

“Arsehole.” He grinned, took Steve’s hand back in his own as they walked out of the shop, teddy poking his head just above the zip of the rucksack Steve held in his other hand.

It was weird, in a way, how things came round in full circles. Because Ted wasn’t perfect, he was worn around the edges and damaged and broken and sewn up so many times that you could still see the cracks beneath the surface he’d tried to keep clean. There were parts of him missing that Steve had never seen and parts lost along the way that had never quite managed to stay put. But that hadn’t mattered to Steve, and he’d loved him nonetheless. Just like he loved Billy, scars and broken bits and the bits that were no longer quite there.

Billy may never quite fit in his backpack and he may not have been there since the beginning. But he was there in Steve’s bed and he was gripped tight in his hand and he was with Steve through everything the day brought. And he knew, beyond everything, that he was going to be there until the end.

His dad may have chucked Ted in the bin, but he’d found his way back to him eventually. And he swore he was never going to let him go again.

**Author's Note:**

> just like, pretend build a bear opened when same sex marriage was legal okay, i've really fucked around with timings in this lmao
> 
> come and cry about harringrove with me on [tumblr](https://lemonflavouredspatula.tumblr.com/)


End file.
